is abortion correct when it saves the mother?

[northcity4]

No, your explanation of core premises has nothing to do with this. Here is the real question: why tell me your beliefs for the sake of of just telling?

In other words, can you even support what you believe? You are going to learn very quickly that regardless of your moral intuitions that if you cannot support them then you have no reason to believe them other than for the fact that is 'how you feel.'

Positive rights do exist for all cultures. You have yet to support your claim they do not. Can you provide 1 culture that does not and even if you found one, that still wouldn't help your claim. Secondly, the bandwagon effect has nothing to do with other cultures accepting positive/negative rights. I suggest you get a deeper grasp at the aim of the bandwagon effect. The term: ad populum indirect bandwagon is usually used in political speeches or advertisements. To say other cultures 'jumped on board' with positive/negative rights is foolish.

Lastly, I don't see why you are taking offense to someone trying to persuade you. Philosophy does that and if you are feeling 'insulted' then obviously your argumentation is getting clouded. Explain to me or justify to me why you believe that it is permissible to go back and not help that man? Telling me your beliefs does not satisfy the situation. If you cannot provide a good reason as to why, I don't even see how yourself can believe that.

BTW: are you going to keep getting mad about 'being insulted' or are you going to show an argument? If you are just going to reply being mad, don't bother replying at all and we'll stop talking on this thread for good.

[OldTrees]

No, your explanation of core premises has nothing to do with this. Here is the real question: why tell me your beliefs for the sake of of just telling?

You asked a question (see below) of me that would have been socially unacceptable to not answer. This was after I pointed out our moral intuitions on this topic differed and you had trouble understanding that. So an explanation was in order to remove miscommunication.

So, you are at home and some guy is banging on your door. You open and see he's dying and asks for help. So, you are saying you can go back inside your house and leave him with no help?

Positive rights do exist for all cultures. You have yet to support your claim they do not. Can you provide 1 culture that does not and even if you found one, that still wouldn't help your claim. Secondly, the bandwagon effect has nothing to do with other cultures accepting positive/negative rights. I suggest you get a deeper grasp at the aim of the bandwagon effect. The term: ad populum indirect bandwagon is usually used in political speeches or advertisements. To say other cultures 'jumped on board' with positive/negative rights is foolish.

I thought you were familiar with ancient Greece. Aka Virtue Ethics
Or Christianity. Aka Divine Command Theory
Or Utilitarianism.
The bandwagon effect was in response to your claim that "since most people believe X, you should believe X." aka a fallacy.

Lastly, I don't see why you are taking offense to someone trying to persuade you.

I did not get offended at you trying to persuade me. I got offended at you trying to persuade me by using an argument based on a core premise that I did not share and that you knew I did not share. I got offended at the idea that such an approach could even be considered when trying to persuade considering it has no persuasive element.

If you understand this post then do not reply to it. If you don't understand this post then I will have to continue to try to explain it to you.

[northcity4]

Bandwagon effect does not apply to positive/negative rights in this case. No culture said "hey, cultures A-Y are doing positive/negative rights as part of their legal system, therefore we as Z should as well." Bandwagon effect is a type of persuasion that is an indirect appeal to the people. Cultures A-Y are not trying to show off. You don't really don't understand the problem here do you? I claimed that yes, just about every culture claims positive/negative rights, but I stated that as evidence that they do exist. Bandwagon effect would be like this:

Hey: everyone claims positive/negative rights, so should you. In this scenario, I have actually not given a valid reason as to why you should believe--->that is why it's a fallacy

Here is what I am saying: everyone claims positive/negative rights, therefore they exist. I fail to see evidence that suggests otherwise, I have only seen evidence to suggest strongly it.
So, what about Greece (virtue ethics) and divine command theory? They still use a type of positive/negative rights since these rights also exist in legal systems. Again they vary, but exist.

Lastly: the original question was something you kind of walked yourself into. It was kind of a sub-topic and your answer was a belief sentence, not a statement/argument. If you honestly never wanted to answer/really go about this question, your fault for not saying so. In the mean time, you have yet to really talk about my abortion argument much. Assuming the fetus to be human, I consider abortion an act in which it is letting die (sometimes a direct kill) of the fetus. I then argued that abortion is an act of letting die that is impermissible. For this reason it is murder and murder=immoral. Therefore abortion immoral. Don't agree? explain why.

Support for letting die being impermissible.
1) if the act of abortion is taken, then the fetus will die.
abortion is taken, therefore the fetus will die.

2) Using a converter: this is saying: All acts of abortion are acts in which the fetus will die. If we switch the fetus with human, which we can assuming the fetus is human: All acts of abortion are acts that will kill a human.
The key is define the ambiguous statement of kill: is it kill or murder?

Evidence for kill: women's body, women's rights. Painless death. Baby will end up dying anyways when it's born. Save one life or save another.

Murder: People do not control other people's lives. Abortion fails to meet the third party diagrams and does meet the Person A+--->B- diagram. Fetus is human and is not giving concensus for us to kill it. All acts that a fetus does are permissible. Lastly, save one life or another tries to put abortion the the third party diagram=incorrect.

Notice the evidence given for why abortion is 'killing' and not 'murder' are only excuses in logic. They actually make no claims as to whether the morality of their acts can actually be justified.

[destruct]

Something is moral when both the object and intention of the act are good, and the circumstances are more good than bad, or neutral (because they can never be perfect)
The object, or what you are actually doing, is killing the baby.  This is bad.
The intention is to save the life of the mother.  Good
The circumstances are neutral because one will live and one will die, and each human is worth the same amount.
Therefore the act is bad, because the ends do not justify the means.  because the object is bad, the act is bad.

If the woman was to take a life-saving medication with a 50% chance of killing the baby, that is a morally OK act, because the object (taking medicine) is good, the intention (to save the mothers' life) is good, and the circumstances are again neutral, and more good because there is a chance that both will live.

Note that morality is dependent on more things than just the consequences.  Object and intention also matter.

[northcity4]

This is different. When life/death enter into the equation, philosophers purposely avoid using certain philosophical theories (like utilitarianism--->outside of third party theory). In this case, abortion is not a third party theory, it is a two person.
What does this mean?

Good intention=/=right to kill. Baby has just as much right to live as the mom does. Mom makes the choice= diagram 1 as I posted earlier. In this diagram, if person 1 (in this case the mom) kills person B with out permission, it is immoral. In abortion: abortion as you said (killing) is bad, but the intention does not alter it.

---> there is a third factor=the circumstances.

Example:
a) killing the baby= bad
b) intention= good
c) circumstance= does not justify the intention in this case.

Here is my opposition:
a) killing= bad
b) intention= good and bad (selfish/controlling/etc)
c) circumstance: lets keep it to save one, other dies, vice versa.

---> now try this (1-10, where 10 being the more higher value)

a) killing= bad (10)
b) intention=good(1), bad (1)
c) N/A since we are neutral for right now here.

In this sense, the intention, even if good, does not justify the killing, so at best, you are left with a bad (9). I do ask you look over my argument form and debate that as well.

--->interesting point: the 50% medication. I am not completely opposed to this, but, what if the medication had a 1% chance? I feel like this is fine, but if it was 99% chance, I see it as immoral. Should we try finding a % that is permissible or not? Would other circumstances influence this?

[destruct]

This is different. When life/death enter into the equation, philosophers purposely avoid using certain philosophical theories (like utilitarianism--->outside of third party theory). In this case, abortion is not a third party theory, it is a two person.
What does this mean?

Good intention=/=right to kill. Baby has just as much right to live as the mom does. Mom makes the choice= diagram 1 as I posted earlier. In this diagram, if person 1 (in this case the mom) kills person B with out permission, it is immoral. In abortion: abortion as you said (killing) is bad, but the intention does not alter it.

---> there is a third factor=the circumstances.

Example:
a) killing the baby= bad
b) intention= good
c) circumstance= does not justify the intention in this case.

Here is my opposition:
a) killing= bad
b) intention= good and bad (selfish/controlling/etc)
c) circumstance: lets keep it to save one, other dies, vice versa.

---> now try this (1-10, where 10 being the more higher value)

a) killing= bad (10)
b) intention=good(1), bad (1)
c) N/A since we are neutral for right now here.

In this sense, the intention, even if good, does not justify the killing, so at best, you are left with a bad (9). I do ask you look over my argument form and debate that as well.

--->interesting point: the 50% medication. I am not completely opposed to this, but, what if the medication had a 1% chance? I feel like this is fine, but if it was 99% chance, I see it as immoral. Should we try finding a % that is permissible or not? Would other circumstances influence this?

I totally agree.  A good intention never justifies a bad object, as northcity said (and I said)

Therefore the act is bad, because the ends do not justify the means.  because the object is bad, the act is bad.

There is a law in morality called double effect, where if the object and intention are good, and the good circumstance/consequence is greater than the bad, the act is morally OK.  This probably answers the % question, but we also have to note how accurately doctors can determine the %.

[northcity4]

The double effect runs into the issue of permissibility. Kant argues that if the evil is close (%) to the action, the act cannot follow. Example: I kill someone randomly to harvest their organs to save 5 people. Kant says this is impermissible. Now, if I knocked a person out to quickly save 5 people, Kant says the is much more permissible as opposed to killing them.

--->so yes I agree, there needs to be found some permissible scale or % to work with.

[BluePriest]

Ultimately, this thread asks 1 simple question. If something is normally morally wrong, do certain circumstances make it right. The answer to that is a simple no. However, it does many times make it morally permissible. What does that mean? It means that even though its wrong, people will understand that a negative outcome would have happened either way, but you took the outcome that you felt would have the least of the negative effects.

For the baby example, there are actually plenty of other things to consider. These however, arent constants, so I understand them not being used.

Say the mother makes the majority of the income in the family. What will happen to the father if the mother dies to save the baby? Will he even be able to support the baby? Will he be able to keep the house? There are a ton of things that actually need to be considered.

[northcity4]

Well, I said earlier that even though something is immoral, government is going to make laws that they feel is best.

Having said that, this is why it is hard for philosophers to determine to the morality of things since consequences play a key role in our thinking.

The truth is: assuming the fetus to be human...circumstances do not give the mom the right to make the call if the abortion is allowed. It's really that simple and continuing to give excuses for the mom only shows us why one may feel it is okay. The truth still stays the same: killing a human. I feel like I am repeating myself, so i will say it once more: money, outcomes, likelyhoods, laws...in abortion this does not change the fact you are still killing a human.

Kant gives good examples of this and so I ask you look into Kant as I trust Kant's claims a lot.

As far as permissibility: you seem to misunderstand morality with permissiblity. Permissible=morally okay. Circumstances on some things make it morally okay.
One example: The general rule is killing a human is wrong, but if it is self-defence, that action is deemed permissible and thus morally okay. You can't do an immoral action and say it is permissible in philosophy. In the political world we live in...you are correct.

PS: please read my logical form (can be found a page or 2 back) on my abortion argument

[OldTrees]

@BluePriest and Northcity
Moral can mean either Morally Permissible or Morally Praiseworthy. In any decision there is at least 1 Morally Permissible option. However there is not guaranteed to be a Morally Praiseworthy option (see selecting flavors of icecream).

BluePriest is claiming that circumstances can change an action that is prima facie Morally Impermissible into an action that is Morally Permissible but cannot change the action into an action that is Morally Praiseworthy.

[northcity4]

To be honest, I don't think praiseworthiness has anything to do with this topic. Permissibility is what matters.

[OldTrees]

To be honest, I don't think praiseworthiness has anything to do with this topic. Permissibility is what matters.

1) Praiseworthiness was mentioned in the opening of Blue Priest's post. There is more there to read now that I explained what that part meant.

2) It is incorrect, though Morally Permissible, to chose a merely Morally Permissible option when a Morally Praiseworthy option exists. Thus there are 2 questions to ask to determine if an option is correct: Is the option Morally Permissible? If so then is there a more Morally Praiseworthy alternative?